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The purpose of the Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) is to promote the preservation, conservation, and restoration of the native plants and native plant communities of Florida. This blog presents ideas and information to further the cause of Florida's native plants and ecosystems.

Northern Alabama: Discovering Natives with our Neighbors

Devon's quest to find a
stateside location for an FNPS Native Plant Tour, brought her and her husband
to North Alabama, where they found the natural areas and plants to be as
diverse as anywhere in Florida, and the people just as dedicated to preserving them.
You too can discover our native plant neighbors on the FNPS NORTH ALABAMA NATIVE PLANT TOUR, APRIL 17 – 22ND, 2017.

Though I’ve travelled
throughout the United States, it never seems to be enough. The United
States is so huge, and every state and region has its own unique features;
sugar white beaches, rocky cliffs, huge peaked mountains, rolling hills,
prairies and alpine meadows. Every state is diverse, and each
season brings different wildflowers and foliage. Spring is nothing like fall,
winter or summer. Newly emerging leaves in spring are translucent,
ephemeral, pale green. Fall evolves to the crisp oranges, reds and
yellows. I want to see it all……over and over.

Pitcher Plants, Kaul Wildflower Garden

Last October, my husband
and I set off “to see what we could see”. We had never spent much time in
north Alabama, but it was a day’s drive away and far enough north to support
different plant communities than Florida. In anticipation, we poured
through magazines, websites and joined the Alabama Wildflower Society
(AWS), the Alabama equivalent of our Florida Native Plant Society.

Then we found Linda.
Actually, I think, Linda found us; two lost souls wandering through the Alabama
Wildflower Society website. You see, Linda has been involved in the AWS
for quite some time and she was thrilled to hear that some of the Florida
members are interested in her state. We became fast friends, just over the
phone. But that’s the south, where everyone is “Darlin” and no one is a
stranger even if you just met, especially if you are another native plant
lover. The world does not know more welcoming people than native plant
people!

When we arrived in
Birmingham, Linda was waiting for us, along with about 20 other local native
plant enthusiasts. You see, she had already contacted the native plant
members in her area and they were ready and eager to showcase their state.

Marty Shulman, the
retired Land Manager of Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve, explained
how Birmingham became one of the top steel producing regions in the country, first
utilizing Longleaf Pines for the process, then moving on to coal, just as the
pines were nearly depleted. Iron ore, coal and limestone are the three
ingredients needed to make steel and central Alabama has all three. Thus,
explains the 56-foot-tall cast iron statue of Vulcan, the Roman God of fire and
forge, in the center of Birmingham.

Bibb County Glades Preserve

Charles Yeager, Manager
of Turkey Creek Nature Preserve, in the heart of the Birmingham, explained
how this inter-city preserve had been abandoned by all and utilized by gangs
who drove their cars into the river to wash them. When the land was at
its bleakest point, the city proposed building a prison on the site. But to the
local residents, this was the last straw. They rose up, banded together and
demanded the city preserve it. Today, it is a beautiful urban renewal
project, much loved and used by the local residents.

While visiting the Birmingham Botanical Gardens we met John Manion, Curator of the Kaul Wildflower Garden, a 17-acre garden within the main Garden. John is
the charming personality who created the native plant studies program at the
Gardens. He also manages one of the world’s rarest plants, the
Tutwiler’s spleenwort, Asplenium tutwilerae, a fern so rare that
less than 5 acres of land hold the only known population in the world.

As we ventured north
from Birmingham, the terrain became more rugged, sporting steep canyons with
gorges sliced by rivers and streams. We climbed the mountain in Cheaha State Park, the highest point in Alabama.

Jim & Fy Lacefield, Cane Creek Canyon Preserve

Linda set up a meeting
with more locals, like Jim and Fay Lacefield, two school teachers who saved
their own salaries and bit-by-bit bought up 700 acres of canyon land with
coursing streams, then, gave it away! In perpetuity, Cane Creek Canyon Preservewill remain a wilderness area protected by The Nature
Conservancy, thanks to two people who had the love and foresight to preserve
it.

On to Huntsville where
the US Space and Rocket Center is located, the sister facility to Cape
Canaveral, and Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, a 37,000 acre preserve for
migrating birds, established by FD Roosevelt.

Cathedral Caverns State Park

Just to the east is
Scottsboro and underground is one of the most beautiful caverns in the United
States. Cathedral Caverns State Park has some of the largest
chambers in a cave system that I’ve ever seen. One stalagmite is the size
of a school bus and bears witness to the earthquakes the region has recently
endured.As we fanned over to the
northeast corner of the state we crossed a national preserve, part of the US
National Park System. Cousin to our western parks, and equally impressive, the LittleRiver Canyon National Preservesports a river flowing atop a mountain. The steep canyon walls, appropriately named "Little River", are
the most extensive canyon and gorge system in the eastern United States, and
habitat for the carnivorous green pitcher plant and Kral’s water plantains.

If this intrigues you, stop dreaming, and join FNPS on a tour of Northern Alabama, April 17-22nd. We will learn more about Alabama native plants, meet
the local native plant enthusiasts, learn what inspires them, and discover
a world beyond Florida’s borders. Plan to meet Linda and
other members of the Alabama Wildflower Society, walk the woods of a
Benedictine Abbey, and seek out native trilliums and wild orchids. Check out theitinerary, register, mark your calendar and pack your bags for north Alabama! For questions,
call Devon at 813-478-1183.

Comments

This trip sounds great! I definitely want to go. To learn more about Alabama's plants, visit http://www.floraofalabama.org. This website will look familiar, as it was developed by USF and was based on its Atlas of Florida Plants. We (USF) are working on a companion AL butterfly atlas which will have flight data and link to the Flora of Alabama atlas's nectar and larval plant species pages.

Introduction: Purple berries clinging around stems with bright green foliage make Callicarpa americana stand out from late summer to winter. It is easy to see how beautyberry got its common name. Don’t let its looks fool you though; Callicarpa is more than just eye candy. Callicarpa americana is useful medicinally and as food for wildlife and people. American Beautyberry is not fussy about location, soil or light requirements. This tough plant is an American Beauty in every sense of the word. Its name comes from Greek: Kalli, means beautiful; Karpos means fruit.

Historic Medicinal Uses:
Native Americans had many uses for beautberry, both internally and externally. According to Taylor (1940), Native Americans used beautyberry externally as a steam and topical application. All parts of the pla…

﻿ ﻿Australian pines seem to be everywhere in the coastal regions in the bottom half of Florida. Their name is deceiving because, while they are native to Australia, they aren't pines or even conifers. They are flowering trees with separate male and female flowers, and what look like needles are really green twiglets with close-set circles of tiny leaves that drop at the first sign of a drought. In the photo to the right, the light-colored lines are where leaves where once attached. Most of the photosynthesis takes place in the twiglets.

There are three species of Australian pine (Casuarina spp) that have been imported into Florida for various purposes. They were widely planted to soak up the "swamps" in Florida, stabilize canals, and hold beaches. Unfortunately for Florida's ecosystems, the "pines" accomplished all this and more--like seeding prolifically, growing five feet or more per year, producing dense shade, and emitting an herbicide that kills most a…

These perky natives have numerous and endearing charms. Authors and growers disagree about the proper Latin name, but they are in complete agreement that more people should use more coonties in their landscapes.

What's to like?
Coonties are spritely and graceful in their form, tough as the dickens, bright green all year, and host plant for the beautiful blue atala
hairstreak butterfly. In fact, coonties are the only larval food for atalas. You can use them as specimen or accent plants, mass them together for ground cover, or use them in a line as a border. And to top that off, they have an interesting sex life. A subject we hardly ever get to talk about around here. More on that later. See more in Roger Hammer's 1995 Palmetto article, The Coontie and the Atala Hairstreak.

Slow growers, coonties are more expensive to buy than some other natives by relative size, but don't let that put you off. They are well worth the investment. They can be planted in full sun or fairly …